One of our tribe,
either because he thought so or to please Critias, said that in his
judgment Solon was not only the wisest of men, but also the noblest of
poets. The old man, as I very well remember, brightened up at hearing
this and said, smiling: Yes, Amynander, if Solon had only, like other
poets, made poetry the business of his life, and had completed the tale
which he brought with him from Egypt, and had not been compelled, by
reason of the factions and troubles which he found stirring in his own
country when he came home, to attend to other matters, in my opinion he
would have been as famous as Homer or Hesiod, or any poet.

And what was the tale about, Critias? said Amynander.

About the greatest action which the Athenians ever did, and which ought
to have been the most famous, but, through the lapse of time and the
destruction of the actors, it has not come down to us.

Tell us, said the other, the whole story, and how and from whom Solon
heard this veritable tradition.

He replied:--In the Egyptian Delta, at the head of which the river Nile
divides, there is a certain district which is called the district of
Sais, and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the
city from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their
foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted
by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great
lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to
them. To this city came Solon, and was received there with great honour;
he asked the priests who were most skilful in such matters, about
antiquity, and made the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene
knew anything worth mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion,
wishing to draw them on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about
the most ancient things in our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who
is called 'the first man,' and about Niobe; and after the Deluge, of the
survival of Deucalion and Pyrrha; and he traced the genealogy of their
descendants, and reckoning up the dates, tried to compute how many years
ago the events of which he was speaking happened. Thereupon one of the
priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes
are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you.
Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that
in mind you are all young; there is no o